


the art of being human

by neverwhyonlywho



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:32:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverwhyonlywho/pseuds/neverwhyonlywho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They check on the TARDIS when they get home in the early pre-dawn hours, and for the first time, the key turns in her lock.</p>
<p>They’re equal parts giddy and exhausted already, but when he glances at Rose, her grin matches his own and there’s no question: it’s time.</p>
<p>Giftfic for helplesslynerdy. Satisfies trope bingo square "au: all-human."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the art of being human

At first they agree: no Torchwood. No more aliens. There are plenty of good reasons for it: too risky, only one life, spending it together happens to require both of them to be consistently alive, et cetera. And for a while, that consensus is enough.

So they wait for the TARDIS to grow. The Doctor speaks frequently of wanderlust, spinning long, lush threads about all the places he’s going to take her, murmuring them into her ear as they fall asleep. No adventures, they agree–just tourism. Strictly sightseeing. Definitely.

In the meantime, they take up more innocuous hobbies.

There’s a pottery studio across town that they visit a few times, and he only causes a  _minor_  disaster the first time, when he gets impatient with shaping the clay and decides to speed up the wheel. They end up with a few slightly misshapen mugs out of the bargain, but it’s the painting part of it that seems to capture Rose’s interest most, and so a few weeks later he surprises her with art lessons.

She’s not great at it–he’s even worse–but she genuinely enjoys it, and they graduate to painting in a few months. (This, too, has its distractions. Like misappropriated paint: on Rose, on the Doctor. There are private lessons, object lessons, on the various benefits of this sort of artistic expression.)

Rose doesn’t go quite so far as presenting him a painting for his birthday–there’s an entire whirlwind of events that day, checking on the nearly-grown TARDIS, parties, meetings, the whole gamut, and she gives him many things in the end–but there’s a painting that appears in the Doctor’s study at some point that day, modestly framed, that makes him stop in his tracks: a silver tree Rose has never seen, under a burnt orange sky with twin suns that should be completely, utterly foreign to her.

He thinks he should ask her about it, and then he remembers what she doesn’t: that for just a little while, she saw, knew, felt everything.

When he does thank her later, he ventures to ask how she got the idea–predictably, she merely shrugs. “Thought you’d like it,” she says with a smile and a kiss. “Dunno why.”

And he has to admit he takes comfort in it. It eases the long nights of Vitex planning, paperwork, negotiations–at least a little bit. To his surprise, he doesn’t feel homesick once.

Months pass. They take up paintball, geocaching, community theater.

He proposes at two in the morning on a lamplit streetcorner in London. The building behind her isn’t a Henrik’s, not in this universe, but the way her breath hitches and the way she’s beaming tells him that she knows why they’re there anyway.

They check on the TARDIS when they get home in the early pre-dawn hours, and for the first time, the key turns in her lock.

They’re equal parts giddy and exhausted already, but when he glances at Rose, her grin matches his own and there’s no question: it’s time.

***

The console room is a soft, warm orange color, soothing and inviting and not entirely unfamiliar. Rose hangs back when the Doctor puts his hands on the console for the first time–he’s whispering something in a language she doesn’t understand, but the hushed tone, the rhythm of it, reminds her of old friends meeting, of parts of a whole coming back together again.

When he turns back around to face her, his eyes are moist with happiness, and she hugs him so hard it presses the air from both their lungs.

***

They explore.

The wardrobe is little more than a broom closet just yet; there’s his duster, a couple shirts and trousers, a few ties, a pair of chucks.

There are also a pair of white trainers in Rose’s size, and she recognizes that for the welcome that it is.

Some of the rooms are no more than prototypes of what Rose knows they will one day be. The kitchen is little more than a kitchen sink. The pool in the library is…more of a bird bath beside a bookcase.

There is one volume on the shelf: a Type 40 TARDIS user’s manual.

Rose nudges the Doctor with her elbow, offering him a tongue-touched grin. “Gonna read that this time?”

Predictably, he scoffs. “And spoil all the surprises? Wouldn’t _dream_  of it.”

Still, he handles the book like it’s fragile, like it’s a hallowed thing, and she thinks he might be considering it anyway.

They find the bedroom last. They’re both genuinely tired, would love to have a kip, but the room is empty except for a floor lamp and a hammock.

They’ve tried hammocks before–still have one in the backyard, actually–but they’d had such trouble with it that at the sight of this one, they look at each other and burst out laughing.

“I think we’d best wait for the upgrade,” Rose giggles. “Couldn’t stay on for ten minutes last time.”

He takes her hand and leads her away. She thinks they’re leaving–but he stops at the wardrobe and pulls out the duster instead, draping it over his free arm.

She’s about to ask, but then he cocks his head back in the direction they’d come. “Can make do on the floor, if you’d like?”

It’s a request more than an invitation, but she knows she can do him one better. She takes his hand and cocks her head in the opposite direction: toward the console room.

“Better over there, don’t you think?”

His smile is a strange thing, one like she’s never seen–barely contained, barely there, tugging at the corners of his mouth and he’s silent, saying everything.

(For once, the Doctor is speechless.)

They sleep curled around each other in the shadow of the TARDIS console, the heart of the living machine humming gently in their bones.

***

Space tourism only lasts so long.

It’s the “no aliens” rule they break first. They start by bending it to “no hostile aliens,” then “no hostile aliens with projectile weapons,” and finally end up quietly ignoring it altogether.

It’s the TARDIS’ instinct to take them where there is work to be done; they always have the choice to turn around and go back, but they never do. There is always a reason to help.

It’s not until they’re signing their waivers at Torchwood, though, that Rose turns to the Doctor and admits, “We’re really rubbish at this ‘normal’ thing, aren’t we?”

“Completely,” he agrees.

***

Eventually, Rose claims a room in the TARDIS for herself. It’s big and airy, with a domed ceiling, and there’s a phosphorescent paint she picks out, and for every year of her life with the half-human Doctor, she paints a hundred white stars in her makeshift sky.

In time, there are thousands.

It’s her private commemoration to the Time Lord Doctor–that when night falls and the kids are in bed and even the TARDIS is resting, there is still a light burning, still something to say  _we remember you_ , to say  _all of this is here because of you_.

Because this life they’ve built–it’s always new, and always a little dangerous, but mostly–mostly it’s _fantastic_.


End file.
